exploring past visions of possible futures

Category Archives: Class Notes

opening paragraph / thesis
In this paper, I will argue that
* it should be not overly general
* it should mention the texts you will examining
* ask the “so what?” question and push the thesis one step further

In-Class Writing:
Reflect on one of the following themes in Octavia Butler’s Dawn:

Time

Memory

Birth

Time
— Oankali understanding of time vs. Lilith understanding of time
O: have a grand scheme — don’t know how long i will take
— patience — much more than humans
— time = elusive
— no real sense of time
— being on ship — lose track of 24 hour day/night cycle
L: her own lifetime

–> dislocation from time

why do they seem to have an infinite amount of time?
— different life span?

— Oankali destroying ruins
oankali want to control future of humankind, which means controlling the past
–destroying ruins, destroying human culture in general
why do we want to save animals from extinction? how do we do it?
— guilt
— ecosystems — adaptations/change

why destroy our ruins?
— maybe not trying to dominate us, but trying to free us from obsession with cultivating our own traditions/past models — b/c those traditions/models brought you to another end
— cf. intelligence + hierarchical

Self interest/preservation as a central part of species survival
— cf. conserve rain forests b/c we don’t know everything about them yet — save both for earth and for planet. but if big pharma gets

— memory — in the sense of lived experiences
—- altered memories — things that the Oankali have induced humans to forget
— memory — in the sense of a past
— memory — in a kind of mechanical sense — cf. clones/prints

human fear of unfamiliarity
— look different
— sexes – male/female/Ooloi
— sensory organs
— sensory organs — things that allows them to see also allows can kill you
— interact w/environment in different ways
— humans fear motives of Oankali, what will happen when they are modified
— in process of stopping the extinction of humanity, they are modifying humans to not be human any more

— unknown about humankind’s future

Octavia Butler: “[my books] are stories of power [. . .] I bring together multi-racial groups of men and women who must cope with one another’s differences as well as with new, no necessarily controllable abilities within themselves.”

power
humans dealing with a species that has more power

— have Lilith’s life in their hands
— have studied her
— what’s true — untrue

Science/experiment
— cf. Oankali treat Lily as we (in our current moment) treat animals
— make decisions for them
— cf. do androids dream –> giving L. offer to kill herself
— Lilith — role — teaching other humans —
— making decisions that benefit her in long run — but she doesn’t understand how/why
— or humans to other human — parent/child — ex. taking a child to get a shot

spaying cats — ethical dimensions
are oankalis doing to humans what we have done to animals and to other humans?

process of radical inclusion — absorbing everything they run into — we are one peer species — we face being absorbed by them
— they don’t have areas — no gender separation, mixing, families

oankali — absorptive model, don’t see themselves as conquering species
— Lilith — feels that it is invasive
— BODY
— Lilith’s resistance — opposite of Oankali — of what they are — she is very strong, individual —

CLOSE READING
p. 52 “the child hesitated”
— character — touches oankali — come a long way from fear of the unknown
begins to understand imprisonment more deeply
“forest of tentacles”
— what is a forest? what is inside a forest? mystery

Group exercise in close reading:
1. Share passages
2. Focus as a group on one of the passages
3. Think about issues of meaning and language – focus on important metaphors and their meanings
4. Discuss how the passage would be different w/different language
5. Interpret the passage

2. Reflect on your paper-writing process. What aspects of the writing process worked well for you? What was the most difficult aspect of the assignment and/or you chosen topic? What would you do differently next time?

disagree that we are smarter. we recognize intelligence in ourselves before others. we see facial expressions. some animals express selves in sounds/ways we can’t understand. about what we are raised to think about intelligence

humans have free will/ animals — repetition

what is consciousness?

being self-aware — knowing that you exist

something can’t be self–aware without having emotions

curiosity

ask why you are alive

what ties us together is that we we seek nuture/tension/need to exist / can be broken

— if there is correlation between mechanical animal
humans:animals :: androids:mechanical animals
are androids able to do anything that connects them in abstract way that connects them somehow — think about mechanical animals
— our conceptual structure is different from androids so we can’t understand them or understand how they understand exactly

— if androids feel that they need a connection to other synthetic animals the way we connect to animals — the way we connect sheep

— ppl try to sleep – count sheep — do androids count off electric sheep — subconscious or do they just turn off. if they have a subconscious they need to turn off

how human are androids

do androids have imagination? consciousness?

animals — empathy

opening scenes — satire of suburbia

what is the role of animals in this society?
— class — rarer animal — shows how much money you have — robot animals cheaper
— stanley’s — blue book for animals — price lists

embarrassing to have a robotic animal

only reason to have a fake animal — to show I have a rare animal — illusion of having the real thing

animals replacing way suburbia sees children — cf. kids — if married, why don’t you have an animal.

animals are an anchor for normalcy — reminds of times

humans v. androids — humans capable of empathy
cf. psycho killer — classic trope – kills animals
in this society, androids mixed
to show your HUMANITY by having an animal
importance of having an animal is your humanity

he wants something that’s real

real / fake

authenticity

empathy

emotion

Voigt-Kampf test — empathy – ch. 5

In-class group assignment –> come up with your own imaginary test to be able to tell the difference between androids and humans

authorial intention — how do we know the author’s intention? should the author’s intention be privileged over other possible interpretations? —-> multiplicity of meaning. —> is interpretation of a text up for everyone to discuss or should the author have special privilege to adjudicate meanings?

cf. movies –> director interpreting a book —-> adaptation

is the author just another reader after the text is released? —>

line between what is part of the text and what is interpretation?

trying to assign motives to the author is problematic

how do we know what an author intends? — ask him. What if author misleads? what if author is dead? —> read biographies. rea

Author

biographies

introduction to an edition

life/ideas

interviews

wikipedia???

look at records related to life

journals

historical/socio-economic

analyze whole collection of books

newspaper articles

letters

read authors who inspired that authork

other authors in genre

CONTEXTS

Political/Social/Historical Context

what beliefs were generally held about the topic of book? ex. robots 150 years ago

social/racial/class issues at time

laws, constitutions – what type of government in country

economic issues – ex. industrialization of country

technological advances/issues/development

intellectual climate — what were people talking about, etc.

PRIMARY SOURCES — related to original publication. contemporaneous with it.

book itself

interview

writings by the author — journals, letters, manuscripts, published books

List 2-3 moments in the book — specific passages — that seem to you worthy of extended discussion (perhaps because they relate to the themes you listed, perhaps because they are really complicated). Look for especially rich/complicated/interesting moments that we can unpack together. Rich mineral deposits of textual meaning that we can break apart and examine.

THEMES/MOTIFS

Spacer/Human relations

Human survival —

Biblical references/allegories

Socialism/communal living

artificial / natural

efficiency – streamlining/regulating human behavior

earthmen/women viewed as primitives by spacers

classification — social stratification

conformity vs. individual expression (architecture/art)

human/robot tensions — fear that robots will take over jobs, or that robots will become as human as humans, will eradicate life on earth.

innocence of robots — r. sammy’s stupid smile (friendship circuit)

earthbound robots (r.sammy) vs. spacer robtots (olivaw)

fall of society on earth – Lije looking back at when it used to be better

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.